At a time when airline confidence in the 787 Dreamliners is rising and problems with in-service reliability appear to be falling, a year long investigation by Al Jazeera raises matters that may concern travellers and carriers alike.

The US safety investigator, the NTSB has again taken issue with America’s aviation regulator, the FAA, over its botched oversight of the certification of the Boeing 787′s use of heavy duty lithium ion batteries in accepting them as safe on the advice of the manufacturer.

Students of clarity in language and message management might find interesing the joint FAA, Boeing study into how well the FAA and Boeing managed to identify and correct issues that emerged before and after the the certification of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which they variously certified and designed and made.

The first Boeing 787-9, which will after testing become an Air New Zealand jet, is on its way to Auckland, the first stage of a tour which will take it to Alice Springs for trial hot weather operations.

Updated Japan Airlines has responded to a Boeing warning not to fly its GEnx engined 787-8 Dreamliner within 90 kilometres of thunderstorms by postponing the 2 December inauguration of the jet on its Tokyo (Narita) to Sydney services until a problem with icing affecting those engines is resolved. Jetstar which also uses these GE engines [...]

Amid the torrent of commentary about the consequences of Japan Airlines ordering Airbus A350XWBs there is for the Australian industry the unanswered, perhaps unanswerable question as to how it might affect Qantas and Virgin Australia?

If early reports about the Jetstar 787 focus exclusively on how uncomfortable it is inside then this will actually be good news, since all the stories from abroad are about breakdowns, cancellations and airlines demanding their money back (or something like that)

If you slept through the Canadian jet’s launch flight, there is another spectacle coming up at a more time zone friendly interval as soon as tomorrow when the second Dreamliner model the 787-9 takes off.

About this blog

A reporter since November 30, 1960, Ben Sandilands looks at what really matters up in the sky: public administration of air transport and its safety, the accountability of the carriers, and space for everyone’s knees.